Final Friday 1/30/09

Margaret Raymond submits comments re. Shift Space, City Arts, Beadazzled, Fiber Studio, Fisch Haus, Jones Gallery, and Go Away Gallery.
Ditto Ann's comments re the collaborative pieces at Fiber Studio. I also always enjoy Marilyn Grisham's woven tapestry and fiber fusion work. On her loom is a project in progress. Attached to the castle of the loom are several photographs relating to the subject matter and colors she is using to create the tapestry and a small color drawing of the project. I am a weaver/fiber artist and can appreciate all the work that goes into planning and creating a woven tapestry. Marilyn blends several yarns together on her shuttles to produce subtle color mixtures and variations.
"Noise" was interesting somewhat with all the mirrors and sterno fires but the "light show" and electric guitar just reminded me of the 1970s.
The Jones Gallery had the best live music. The space is a bit awkward and narrow. There were four narrative drawings of a small child from the perspective of, I assume, a parent by Aaron Hill that reminded me of childrens book illustrations more than fine art. All portrayals were simply done on a white background. All the photography on exhibit here was rather bland, although the color photographs of fire by T G Williams were more interesting than the black and white posed sets by L. Hill Harris. Because of the arranged quality of these portraits, I got no sense of spontaneous moments, character or intimate feeling like I experienced with the wonderfully composed and candid photos and thoughtful appreciation of the subjects shown by Dale Strattman at City Arts.
All of the pieces at Shift Space dealt in some way with nature or natural materials combined with technology. The most successful pieces there were Stephen Martonis' Cicada Data and B. Hatter's prints with dead animals. These were hung too widely apart from eachother in my opinion and I wanted to bring them all together as a series because of their shared similarity of background and subject matter. Cicada Data was the most unified piece there. It combined natural elements, man made materials and light and sound technology in a well crafted and considered fashion.
Fisch Haus was a bit too dark for me to take in all that was displayed but the steam and laser light interactive piece and the industrial sized rotating propeller set against a circular purple light spot, the humming sound effects and the musical instrument installation along with the casual and industrial ambience of the gallery space enticed me to stay longer than I thought I would at first. I always enjoy art that includes handwriting so the schematic drawings with notes were also pleasing to me. Everything had a solid and yet ephemeral quality.
At Beadazzled I was more interested in the beadwork than the paintings. I was so disappointed with these decorative and unspecial pieces I did not even bother to see who had produced them. This only affirms for me that quite a bit of the "art" seen in stores just does not exhibit the same quality of that generally observed in galleries.
This gallery crawl brought me to a greater sense of awareness of my personal preferences in art. I am drawn more to photography like Strattman's, fiberarts, ephemera, sculpture, collage and mixed media than to generally technically correct or carefully painted pieces. I appreciate craftsmanship in combination with creativity.